James Bruni With GBG Idology

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studio in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio, brought to you by Kennesaw State University’s Executive MBA program, the accelerated degree program for working professionals looking to advance their career and enhance their leadership skills. And now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here, another episode of Atlanta Business Radio. And this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor, CSU’s executive MBA program. Without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories. Today on Atlanta Business Radio, we have James Bruni with GBG Idology. Welcome.

James Bruni: Good to be here. Thanks, Lee.

Lee Kantor: Can you, James, before we get too far into things, tell us about GBG ideology. How are you serving folks?

James Bruni: Yeah, sure. We’re, um. When the largest identity verification onboarding businesses in the world. We’re about a $400 million company globally. We do about 210 million transactions daily, and we’ve got over 20,000 customers globally. We’ve been around here in Atlanta, Georgia, actually for 20 plus years. But GBG globally has been around for 30 plus where what I’d call financial technology company. We take data and mix it with software and help organizations be more efficient and effective in their onboarding of customers, making sure that they onboard good customers, better customers, better paying customers, and try to do the best job of minimizing fraud, making sure we keep the bad apples out.

Lee Kantor: Now, can you talk a little bit about the history of the company here in Atlanta?

James Bruni: Oh, sure. Yeah. It was started 20 years ago by an entrepreneur that identified the opportunity for identification, digital identification. And it, you know, so, so often, so many companies will build on fancy what I call marketing but but ideology literally built one customer at a time and over 20 years built 100 million plus business. And about three years ago they were acquired by the GBG, which is a global organization. They had a tremendous presence across the globe, and they really wanted a strong presence in the US, and they had an aggressive acquisition strategy and acquired ideology. We’re rebranding GBG ideology. But, you know, the core culture and the core business is right here in Atlanta. But of course, we service what I call the Americas, US, Canada and South America, Central America now. Quite a.

Lee Kantor: History. Yeah. And when? When it was acquired, it was obviously a land based firm that was acquired. Why was it important to kind of stick around Atlanta?

James Bruni: Yeah. No, really. Good point. They wanted to get in North and South America and ideology was had a tremendous brand, had a great culture and had a reputation, a really strong reputation. They also bought another company out of Boston, and then they bought a company out west in Northern California. So over the last couple of years, really, I was brought in to integrate those three businesses. But the core of our business, we still have we have three offices. We’ve got one in New York, we’ve got one in Boston. But our core North American, or what I would call America’s office, is based here in Atlanta. For the hard working people, the talent that we’ve got here. And it’s a real core part of our overall culture, not just GBG ideology, but globally.

Lee Kantor: Now, uh, recently, I’ve had the opportunity to be part of something called Fintech South, which is a big fintech conference that’s been in Atlanta for many years. And I remember talking to somebody that was coming internationally who came down for that event, and they were telling me that when they were telling their friends at their company, oh, I got to go to America for this event. And they were kind of surprised that the event was in Atlanta. Can you explain to folks out there why things like, uh, Fintech South and ideology. It makes perfect sense to be based in Atlanta because a lot of fintech is done in Atlanta.

James Bruni: Um, our biggest segment, um, uh, just in generally our biggest customer segment is, is banking and financial technology. Um, and I think we’ve got a rich history here in Atlanta of financial technology companies starting and building and growing. Um, and I think it has a lot to do with the tremendous with the talent and then also the, the business environment. So for us, of course, we are across the Americas, but it’s amazing the amount of customers that either have core businesses here as their corporate office here, or they have a big presence of talent. Um, so that really lends itself for us being here. Um, and we’re growing. We’re 1200 employees globally, but we’ve got 350 here in the United States with over 130 right here in Atlanta. So, um, as we grow, um, this is a great opportunity for us to look for individuals that have the skills, the talent and really want to fit into our overall culture.

Lee Kantor: Now, one of the ways that you serve the community is, is with your annual fraud report. I think it’s on its ninth, uh, ninth edition this year. Um, can you share a little bit about some of the insights that were gleaned from that?

James Bruni: Sure. Um, this is a report that, um, uh, surveys people not just in the US, but across, across the, across the world. And, um, a few, a few sort of quotes and stats is that generative AI poses a huge threat to business to businesses. Today, uh, 45% of all companies are worried about Jen. Jen generation AI’s ability to create more synthetic identities. Um, also worth mentioning that 74% are concerned about potential for Sif to increase. Um, uh, a quote around fintechs is 58% of fintechs reported suffering a data breach this last year and suffered some or extensive, uh, financial loss. So we’re seeing fraud. Um, um, and another example is we’re seeing fraud, um, double and triple 45% or 45% increase on the average value of a fraud transaction occurred over $5,000. So this is a report that we’ve got baseline’s going back nine years. Um, and it’s really helping our customers as they adjust, um, and as, as they evolve. And how do they and how do they properly fight fraud?

Lee Kantor: Now, as, um, pretty much every company that exists Exist today is a technology company in some form or fashion. Um, how, um, how much does fraud cost? Like what? Like we’re seeing an increase in fraud. But what is kind of the amount of money we’re talking about? Because I would imagine obviously it varies from firm to firm, but if, if that high of a percentage of firms are experiencing fraud, the cost is real and the impact is real. So can you give us an idea of what the cost of the fraud is?

James Bruni: Yeah. For sure. Um, according to the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, um, they estimate that about 5% of total revenue is being impacted by by fraud. Um, 45% of businesses said and they attested that transactions have increased, um, to over $5,000 of fraud. Um, and then what’s even more interesting is that 28% of executives that are running companies don’t feel that they truly understand the real impact of fraud, so they’re trying to do everything they can to get additional, um, uh, clarification visibility. Right. And, um, since 2019, we’ve seen that fraud transactions and we’ve got the metrics for that have doubled.

Lee Kantor: So can you explain how GBG ideology, um, helps an organization kind of protect itself from this type of, uh, kind of cyber challenges that are existing today?

James Bruni: Yeah, sure. Um, I mean, the threat is, I think, really twofold, right? I think we’ve got customer trust. Um, and then we’ve got securing financial and data impact. And I think they go hand in hand. And what GBG has is we mix our content, which is either data or documents, with our software, to help to help organizations onboard customers, um, in a safer way and ensure that they’re onboarding customers that aren’t fraudulent. Um, and there’s a fine line between the friction that it takes to ensure you have a, a good customer. Um, and that process, um, that organizations go through. But if you have meaningful risk based consumer onboarding journeys, you and have the right tools, you can unlock revenue, um, fight fraud. And then also in many situations, um, um, maintain compliance. Um, so many of our, our customers in the fintech and just elsewhere have compliances that compliance regulations that they always want to also want to adhere to.

Lee Kantor: So then your service is not just protecting your services is to kind of unlock data to make your customer more aware of opportunities as well.

James Bruni: Yeah, the idea is to drive revenue, right? Um, organizations want, um, uh, customers that are willing to pay and can pay and that aren’t fraudulent. And that’s what we try to do, is we try to unlock and ensure that the individuals that are coming into your organization are real good paying customers. And that’s what we want to do.

Lee Kantor: And then what is kind of the pain that an organization is having right before they, uh, partner with GBG ideology?

James Bruni: Yeah. Good. Good question. Often it’s either, um, they had a fraudulent, um, uh, prospects come on. And, um, pretend to be somebody else and then caused some type of fraudulent activity, um, where they’re either stealing product or stealing, um. Um, some type of financial, uh, um, takeaway. And then in many situations it could be reputational. Also data breaches, for instance. So getting into an organization’s system and we can help and fight both.

Lee Kantor: So a lot of times they’re coming to you after something bad has happened. They’re trying to triage it and to get beyond it.

James Bruni: Um, I think there’s in some organizations there’s compliance and and based on compliance, they want to ensure that an individual is a certain age if they want to, say, be in the gaming industry or if they want to order alcohol online. So in some sometimes it’s, it’s, um, compliance. And we’ve got the, the tools that will help those organizations onboard and adhere to in compliance. But at the same time bring on as many strong customers as they can to really drive revenue. And then in some situations, it’s it’s it’s strictly to ensure that they’re fighting against fraud and, and any type of revenue that could go out the door because of that fraud.

Lee Kantor: Now, if you were to, uh, give advice to folks out there when it comes to fraud, is there any low hanging fruit they can be doing themselves proactively in order to, you know, protect themselves even a little bit?

James Bruni: Well, I sort of mentioned this, but it’s really having a risk based, um, customer onboarding journey, right? That and make sure they have the right tools, um, to unlock good revenue. Um, but then also be able to fight honestly to fight fraud.

Lee Kantor: Now, um, what is kind of if you looked in your crystal ball, what are you looking forward to as, uh, as we wrap up this year and get into 2025?

James Bruni: No. I’m really. I’m really excited. Um. Uh, GBG ideology. Um, we’re a fast growth business. We want to, um, continue to, um, take advantage and and take care of our customers. Um, over the last year and maybe a year and a half, I really focused on integrating the businesses that GPG acquired here in the Americas. And we created a great solution. We’ve got data and we’ve got documents, and we’ve got great software that work together to do that exactly for our customers. So we’re focused on taking care of our top customers. And then at the same time, um, we have an aggressive, um, go to market strategy to go out and find existing or new customers for us. We’re in we’re in the healthcare space. We’re in the fintech space, as I mentioned, banking space, gaming events. Um, and we have got a lot going on and I’m really excited. A lot of opportunity, particularly here in Atlanta where we’re growing our Atlanta team. We’re looking for solution engineers and, um, and people in technology and people in sales. So it’s an exciting time to be here.

Lee Kantor: So if somebody wants to learn more, have a more substantive conversation with you or somebody on the team, what’s the website? What’s the best way to connect?

James Bruni: Yeah, just do a quick search for GBG ideology and jump on the website. And there’s opportunities where you can reach out to us, um, for either job opportunities and also services.

Lee Kantor: Well, James, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

James Bruni: Thanks, Lee. Great to talk to you. Great to spread the word. Thank you.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Atlanta Business Radio.